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Sunday, April 29, 2012

Principalis, the very last of the ivory-billed woodpeckers, has carried the Staff of Aves and led the bird council in relative harmony for most of his life. Soon, his successor will be hatched from the cardinal family and the process will begin anew. This is the avian way.

But now changes have come, and Principalis must find a way to bring all birds together, to adapt to the growing threats to their way of life.

Tyto Alba, the disgraced barn owl in exile, feels differently. Now these differences have ignited a firestorm over why some birds feel they are better, more deserving, and rightful heirs to the Staff of Aves. Tyto’s long banishment from the council will end soon, bringing with it a new Tyto, a kinder, gentler, and much more devious Tyto.

When the barn owl puts his wicked plan in motion, no bird is safe,especially Principalis and the newly laid egg of his successor.

"Aves – The Age of Engagement" is a stand-alone 48,000-word independent reader children’s book, the first of a series. This is my first novel.

Tuesday, March 27, 2012

ALBANY, N.Y.—A new study based on the National Audubon Society's North American Christmas Bird Count finds birds have taken decades to adjust their ranges northward in response to warming winters.

Frank La Sorte, a post-doctoral researcher at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology in Ithaca, was lead author of the study published online this month by the Journal of Animal Ecology. He said animals adjust to rising minimum winter temperatures by shifting their ranges northward. Since birds are highly mobile and migrate north and south with the changing seasons, they're better able to shift their ranges than less-mobile, non-migrating species, like amphibians.

AP photo

But the study of 59 bird species found it's not all that easy or quick. And some birds are better equipped to follow the changing climate than others.

Take black vultures. While the minimum winter temperature increased from 1975 to 2009, it took black vultures 35 years to catch up with the trend. Over that time, they have spread northward as far as Massachusetts, where winters now are similar to Baltimore's in 1975.

On the other hand, the endangered red-cockaded woodpecker hasn't moved at all. La Sorte said that could be because they have such specialized habitat needs, found only in the sandy longleaf pine forests of 11 southern states. "It might be good to go in and look at how well they're coping" with the rising temperature, La Sorte said Tuesday in an interview. "It depends on their physiological tolerance, and changes in the prey base."

Friday, February 17, 2012

SUMMIT COUNTY — Global warming is likely to drive hundreds of bird species to extinction in coming decades, as more intense and frequent extreme weather events destroy habitat and make foraging impossible.

“Birds are perfect canaries in the coal mine – it’s hard to avoid that metaphor – for showing the effects of global change on the world’s ecosystems and the people who depend on those ecosystems,” said Çağan Şekercioğlu , an assistant professor of biology at the University of Utah.Şekercioğlu recently reviewed 200 scientific studies on climate change impacts to birds, concluding that 600 to 900 species are likely to go extinct by 2100. For context, there area about 10,000 bird species worldwide. The research suggests that each degree of warming could lead to the extinction of an additional 100 to 500 species.